And around the circle we go!
It's only the pre-determined target because we have a monstrous mound of evidence saying it is a reasonable target. Because we have this monstrous mound of evidence, if we get one little widget of evidence that's a bit confusing, it makes sense to think about a way in which it fits into the monstrous mound of evidence without disturbing it.
Now in order to show this is unreasonable, please show how common descent is unreasonable and how there is an alternative equally reaonable theory to explain that monstrous mound of evidence (besides "God arbitrarily decided to make it look like that to test our faith", i.e., God lied).
Please do not feed the red-herring spewing troll. Thank you.
A few years back, Andrew C was convinced he had found an anomaly that would bring evolution down. He'd found a gene which looked to be more similar in chickens and humans than it was in mice and humans. He'd actually learned to use BLAST and compare sequences: very impressive, given that very few creationists do their own research. At the time, I didn't know how to use any of these tools, and was comparing sequences by hand; but indeed, the three genes were as he said they were. Anyway, after some digging around, I discovered he was using the wrong mouse gene. There was a second, more distantly related homolog on the X-chromosome, IIRC. When you found the right mouse gene, indeed mice and humans looked like they'd diverged after the two had separated from chickens.
Instead of learning the right lesson: that by, and large, if there's a well established theory and you find what looks like a significant anomaly, it's most likely you made a mistake, he's instead convinced that evolution has immunized itself against such anomalies. That's a shame. One should always be able to admit one's errors.
You still miss the point. That is not science, that is diversion. Like putting a crossword puzzle together.
P.S. I don't do red herring. The discussion is ERV, and its lack of conclusiveness for determining absolute relationships. This result shows that it is not conclusive. Open your mind to the concept that no matter what the relationship of the ERV would have been with the three branches, the scenario presented would hold all possibilities. It is not falsifiable. They could all have had the virus, none, or any one of them different than the other two and the tree would have been the same.